Blackberry SureType and MultiTap

As nice as it is to have a cell phone sized Blackberry, one thing many people don't like about it is the lack of a full QWERTY keyboard. Recently someone asked me to help them change the default Suretype keyboard input method (I call it predictive typing) to the MultiTap option. This option was not really in an obvious place.

After poking around in many settings and options I finally found it under Options - Language - Input Language. You need to change the option to the other English (United States) selection that is not already set as default. I did not find this option at first since I could not read the full text for this selection. Perhaps RIM should look into making this option a little more obvious!

Hope this tip helps users of the Blackberry Pearl and other similar units. Check my Twitter account for more tips and tricks or subscribe to my blog for regular updates (it's FREE). As always, if you need additional help contact me via email.

8 Tools To Make MS Shops Run Smoother

The following is an excerpt from the original post by Network World. I found this list to be very helpful since I'm in the Windows Admin world. This list is for my reference and for anyone who finds this useful.

PolicyPak

This is a tool you can use to create Group Policy "Paks" that can manage apps like Acrobat Reader, Firefox, Skype. It handles many apps that currently are a nightmare for a network admin -- or require a ton of work

ClipTraining

A task-oriented video training tool that users can easily alter in order to meet precise software training needs. ClipTraining offers a hosted training portal, internal portal hosted on your server or on the ClipTraining appliance CheeTAh.

Password Reminder Pro

A tool for monitoring and auditing passwords in an Active Directory environment. It provides alerts for expiring passwords both for internal and external users. The software offers a full reporting and alert system to help keep your organization secure and in compliance.

HiveWare

A document collaboration tool for Microsoft Word that allows two or more users to edit an active document at the same time without interfering with each other. This is an add-on that uses p2p technology to share documents that change in real time.

Open VPN

A full featured SSL VPN solutio. It is easy to configure and manage. It is open source, it is also priced right.

Excito Bubba Server

A full featured Web-based server (running a Debian Linux distribution) that provides all the power of a full sized server in a small form factor. Bubba II adds Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and eSATA connectors.

Windows 2008 Server Core Configurator

This is for those who want the security of Server 2008 core, but have not quite gotten used to the command line feel yet. Here is a GUI tool to help you configure your core server easily.

Open IT Online

A plug-in for Firefox that allows you to open and edit your documents wherever you are. The extension allows you to also open and edit spreadsheets, presentations and image files.

Check my Twitter account for more tips and tricks or subscribe to my blog for regular updates (it's FREE). As always, if you need additional help contact me via email.

Speed Up Your PC

Photo courtesy of WTL Photos

A friend of mine recently contacted me about his Windows XP machine being very slow. We had the following conversation over an IM session (the names have been changed).

[12:23] BOB: I am having a bunch of problems with my pc - I click on things and nothing happens - I have to click multiple times and even then there is a delay. is there anything I can do?
[12:33] me: hey
[12:33] me: Did you try uninstalling apps?
[12:33] me: defrag may help as well
[12:39] BOB: I don't know what all that means
.....

I used TeamViewer to remote into the machine and take a look. At first, I thought maybe it had something to do with a virus problem that was recently addressed. Upon looking at the issue, I noticed the machine has not been restarted in several days and the machine was very low on disk space. My first recommendation was to restart the machine, which helped. On top of that, the drive was very fragmented, so I asked him to first uninstall anything he didn't need and move files to another drive to free up disk space.

In troubleshooting computer issues, before you begin anything, always remember to ask yourself "What do you want your computer to do faster?". Defining and writing down the problem and coming up with possible solutions should be the first step. This being a Frugal blog, I always like to mention free or very low cost solutions. Below are some basic things that you can do, for free, to speed up your computer.

• Make sure you have restarted (reboot) your computer before anything. See my post on how to fix 90% of pc problems for why you should do this first.
• Make sure you have 10% or more disk space free. You can check this by right clicking on your C Drive and choosing properties. So if you have a 100GB disk, you should have at least 10GB free. Defrag will not run well, or run at all if you are running low on disk space.
• Free Up Disk space using tools such as WinDirStat to help you figure out where the biggest chunks are.
  
• Run Chkdsk - to fix basic disk drive issues
  
• Run Defrag - to get rid of fragmentation, or at least to reduce it.
  
• Check to See if Anti-virus is scanning your system, often times this will slow down your computer. Its probably a good idea to reschedule the time to when you are away from your pc, but it is still on, such as lunch time.
• Uninstall Applications - having too many applications installed and especially having them start up when you boot or login to your computer can slow down even the fastest machines.
• Reinstall your OS - this should be your last resort, since it will require hours if not days of work doing backup and reinstall of your OS and applications.

These are the general things that you could do to speed up your computer. What steps do you take to speed up your computer? Let us know your ideas in the comments. If you like this post, check my Twitter account for more tips and tricks or subscribe to my blog for regular updates (it's FREE). As always, if you need additional help contact me via email.